Keren Benbenisty

Kinetic installation, pump, blue ink, water, porcelain, glassware, pedestal, variable dimensions. 2014

Water, has been a consistent theme in my work over the past decade.  In Avec Le Vide, Les Pleins Pouvoirs, (With the void, Full powers) I created a running fountain on a pedestal through which circulated pigmented water, a work which looked at the way in which Moorish design has been translated into European design Duralex glassware but also at the color blue, which was famously adopted and patented by Yves Klein. 
The title of the fountain referring to a note left by Albert Camus at Yves Klein exhibition Vide at Iris Clert Gallery in 1958. During the opening night , a blue drink prepared by the bar of La Coupole in Montparnasse (a combination of gin, Cointreau, and methylene blue) was served to the 3500 attendees, who apparently ended up urinating blue the next day (much to the artist’s delight).